


Restriction

by AngelofDarkness1605



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5090900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelofDarkness1605/pseuds/AngelofDarkness1605
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Rumplestiltskin gets considerably more than he bargained for when he seeks help from the Dark One in order to save Lady Belle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restriction

Sir Rumplestiltskin knows better than to resist the black, terrifyingly  _alive_  ropes which tie him to the outer tower of the Dark Castle, but his body can't help but continue to attempt to free himself from the unnatural bonds.

The knight has known all along that he probably wouldn't be able to walk into the Dark Castle and ask for the Dark One's help just like that, but that's the only plan he could think of when all more... conventional approaches to his quest failed and the powerful sorcerer didn't react to his increasingly pressing summons.

Reminding himself of the despair that the lady he is meant to save must experience – if she's even still alive, that is - and the urgency with which her father asked him to rescue the maiden all those weeks ago, Sir Rumplestiltskin forces himself to  _think_. He may have been here for an hour at least already, but the Dark One hasn't appeared yet. That means that there must still be time to come up with a plan, to come up with  _anything_ to get out of this highly precarious situation.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

The knight stills when he hears a voice coming from behind him, dark and taunting and... feminine?!

Thorough confusion added to his increasing sense of discomfort and fear, his mouth falls open when the figure of a woman saunters –  _saunters -_ into his view... a petite, grayishly green,  _glittering_ woman dressed in black from head to toe, long and unkempt curls cascading wildly down her face.

"My name is Sir Rumplestiltskin," he says as calmly as he can, rising to his full height – which seems yet more insufficient than usual.

"I know who you are, of course," she says, tilting her head to study him through unnerving, inhuman eyes.

"Will you do me the courtesy of identifying yourself?" he manages to bring out with a reasonably controlled voice when the silence between them lengthens and the figure makes no move whatsoever to do anything other than scrutinize him.

"Do you really need me to introduce myself? Really, I've long known of the sheer  _stupidity_ of knights, but you bring it to a whole new level, sir! Tell me, what do I look like? Who can I  _possibly_ be?!"

Can it be that the Dark One has a... companion, as corrupted as himself? Or perhaps... there has never been any mention of the Dark One being in fact a  _woman_ , but maybe...

" _You_ are the Dark One," he stammers, despite himself stumbling backwards against the unforgiving wall behind him at that realization.

"The one and only," she says, bowing mockingly.

"I... I tried to contact you," the knight finds himself saying, his confusion only increasing further. "I attempted to summon you to ask for your help... to make a deal."

"I know you did."

"So... you  _heard_ me?"

"Of course I heard you, silly knight. It's just... it seemed rather  _pointless_ , helping you achieve your quest."

"What are you saying?" he asks, his focus shifting to the young, innocent woman he's meant to rescue rather than the depraved creature opposite him. "Is there no way to save Lady Belle?!"

"The young lady in question is beyond saving, I'm afraid. If you'd gotten here a few months sooner you might have stood a chance, but alas, it's far too late now."

"Was it her fiancé? Did he hurt her after he abducted her from her father's castle? Please, I have to know what has happened to her, if only so her loving father can learn what has become of her after her fiancé took her with him against her will after she broke off their engagement."

"You've never seen a drawing or a painting of this lady of yours, have you?"

"I... I haven't, no. All I have is the description which her father gave me. She's a beautiful young woman with pale skin, curling dark hair and the bluest of eyes. She always wears a golden pearl necklace around her neck as a reminder of..."

"... of her late mother," the dark creature opposite him adds, removing something glittering from beneath the black fabric of her coat just below her neck – a something which turns out to be nothing other than the delicate pearl necklace he just described.

"Lady Belle!" he gasps, realization dawning.

Intuitively, he means to bow for her, only to be reminded that he is heavily restrained when the ropes pull him harshly back against the cold stone right behind him.

"The one and only," she smirks. "Again."

"My lady," he brings out, looking at her in a whole new way now that the full truth of her identity appears to have been revealed.

"So I'm suddenly a lady now, eh?" she asks, strangely sounding more bemused than anything else.

"Of course," he replies, but not hesitating for just a moment on how he might address the highborn woman who somehow has become the Dark One and who is currently keeping him as her prisoner for all intends and purposes.

"I suppose you want to know what happened to me? If only so you hope to persuade me to let you return to my father to tell him of my  _tragic_ fate?"

"I... I don't know if your fate is tragic, my lady," he dares to say, looking more closely at her to take in her unblemished skin and unrestricted movements. "I'd say that the fate you  _were_  facing was tragic... to be at the mercy of your brutish fiancé."

"What about the fate I'm facing now?" she asks, her voice a lot more serious and low all of a sudden.

"I don't know much about the fate of being the Dark One, my lady," he replies truthfully, "but you seem healthy physically and you appear to be as free as you can possibly be. In that sense, you might be better off the way you are right now."

"Not as stupid as I initially thought, I see," she replies, slowly taking a few steps towards him. "Not as condescending, either. You know, Sir Knight, things might have been very different if I had met you a few months ago."

"My lady, I must ask... what happened to you?" he asks, not understanding what she's referring to and afraid to ask for clarification. "How did you escape... how did you become the  _Dark One?"_

"Why 'must' you ask, I wonder?"

"To satisfy a low, imprisoned knight's curiosity?" he offers weakly, his determination fading when meeting her dark, seemingly endless eyes – which, indeed, upon closer inspection contain a trace of blue.

"Such modesty," she snorts in a way that he shouldn't find nearly as oddly appealing as he does. "As long as you don't forget for only a moment that I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with you... that you might not like the fate I'll eventually bestow on you for trespassing on my grounds. You might not like it  _at all._ "

"I haven't forgotten that, my lady," he replies, shivering. "Not in the slightest."

"Oh well, then I might as well tell you how I ended up the way I did. I suppose it's the usual, really. I had to get away from my fiancé before he could actually hurt me and lock me up in his castle for the rest of my life. I escaped one night after I had encouraged both my guards to drink themselves into a stupor. So there I was, all alone in the forest, a long, long way from home. I couldn't find a hero to help me, so I figured I'd become one myself. Let's just say I didn't count on stumbling on the Dark One in the process... let alone on  _becoming_ the Dark One. But here we are."

Lady Belle – or the former Lady Belle, whomever she is now – has stepped closer towards him again before he has fully processed what she just told him.

"And here  _you_ are, my uninvited guest." There's something unnerving about the way she looks at him, as if she's considering each and every fate she can bestow on him rather than either killing him or setting him free. "Now what am I to do with you?"

Without warning, she closes most of the remaining distance between them, bringing her face right opposite his. Sir Rumplestiltskin is vaguely aware that he should be afraid – he  _is_ , in a way – but, bizarrely all he can think about is how  _stunning_ she is.

Her father said so, of course, but standing here like this, the fading sunlight catching in her dark curls and oddly colored skin, there's something absolutely beautiful about her... discolored skin, reptile eyes and what appear to be rotting teeth and all.

"Just so you know, I was reading a very...  _enjoyable_ book before you so rudely interrupted."

There's something about the way she emphasizes the word 'enjoyable' that has him shivering for a reason he doesn't dare consider.

"You... you enjoy reading, my lady?" he finds himself asking, his curiosity even now greater than his fear – and his sense of self-preservation.

"I do," she firmly replies. "Are you going to tell me now how  _unladylike_ it is of me to read? That I should pursue knitting or dancing instead? Play the bloody  _harp_?!"

"Not... not at all, my lady," he mutters, bewildered and enchanted despite himself. He wonders whether she has always been like this, before she became the Dark One, so wild and fierce. "It's merely... I'm glad that you can engage in activity you enjoy so much."

"Do  _you_ like reading, sir?" she asks, the way she addresses him appearing to be lacking any sort of irony this time.

"I don't, my lady."

"Why not? Do written words make your head hurt?" she replies, her tone becoming mocking once more.

"They... they do, in a way, my lady. That is, I mean to say... I can't read."

"I dare say can't because you never got the opportunity to learn rather than that you refused to learn," she says, those eyes of hers yet more intent when she is all serious again, just like that. "Tell me, Sir Rumplestiltskin, are you lowborn?"

"I am, my lady," he says, barely able to focus on the words when the way she says his name echoes in his mind, her no longer shrill voice seeming to caress each and every unusual syllable.

"How  _low_?"

"My mother and her sisters were spinsters. My father had no employment at all. He abandoned me with my aunties after my mother died. I stayed with them until I was drafted into the army, where I caught the King's attention after I killed an Ogre."

"You singlehandedly slayed an Ogre, so the King knighted you despite your background and you became a real  _hero_. How utterly boring. And yet..."

There's something in the way she keeps standing so close to him, all of her considerable attention focused on him and him alone, that shouldn't make him feel the way it does. It's no excuse either that she's still a  _woman_ and that no female has been this close to him since he was a little boy, let alone a woman who he wasn't related to.

"It was more luck than anything else, my lady."

"Honest, too," she breathes, the warm air of her breath not nearly as foul as he expected. "I'm almost starting to think that you are by far the truest knight I've ever met. And yet, here you are, captivated – quite easily, I might add. I didn't even have to put my book aside. Now tell me, knight, what was your plan when you came here? What would you have done had I let you actually approach me?"

"I... I wanted to ask for your help, my lady, that's all. Ask your advice on how to locate the maiden I couldn't find myself despite my best efforts... before finding out of course that  _you_ are that maiden. That you have so much magic at your disposal that you can disappear completely for good if you want to... to let your father know that you are still alive and that you have escaped your cruel fiancé."

"I don't want my father to see me like this," she says quietly, looking as human in that moment as anyone. "I don't want him to know of the darkness that's part of me now."

"Your father is desperate," Sir Rumplestiltskin says against his better judgment. "Many people are. You are missed by so many. It would mean a lot to many people if they were to at least know that you are safe."

"And what might you have done had I been willing to aid you on your  _noble_  quest? Assuming that your quest hadn't been pointless all along?" she asks, abruptly changing the topic. "What would you have given me in return? Even you must know that all magic comes with a price."

"I do know that. I know that very well. I... I would have hoped to negotiate with you."

"Negotiate? And what, pray tell, do you have to offer me in exchange for my aid in rescuing a woman you've never even met, lowborn knight?"

"Whatever you seem fit, my lady. Or at least, I hope there's something that you seem fit. Something I can do for you. A quest perhaps, or..."

"I don't think so," she mutters, reaching for him with a claw-like hand, her fingers still remarkably feminine but all of her nails as dark as a moonless night. "I don't have need for that kind of services."

"Then what  _do_ you have need of?"

"Well, you are not unpleasant to look at," she says matter-of-factly, those words surprising him yet more than anything that has transpired ever since the ropes which still keep him tied against the tower first ensnared him. "Don't look surprised. False modesty doesn't suit you. I bet there are dozens of young – and not so young – women swooning at the mere thought of you. Probably some men, too."

"I'm quite certain that they don't," he says, lowering his gaze. "I'm hardly... attractive."

"I wouldn't be so certain of that," she replies, leaning yet further into him.

Her thick coat is touching his jerkin, her curls brushing his jaw, mere inches of space left between their faces. To his shame and confusion alike, Sir Rumplestiltskin can't even decide whether he's actually disturbed by their nearness.

"Imagine that I would have made you a deal," she says, pressing her raised hand lightly to the side of his face. "Imagine that I would have offered to find the woman for you, if you'd been willing to stay with me in the Dark Castle for a year. Would you have accepted the deal?"

"I would have," he says, quivering in his boots with something very much unlike fear when she practically caresses his face with surprisingly warm fingertips.

" _Why?_ "

"It's... my duty, my lady. More than that, I wanted to help the young lady and her father. Staying with you for a while... it seems a small price to pay."

"You are a strange man, Sir Rumplestiltskin. Besides, you don't even know in which capacity I would require your presence. You didn't even  _ask_."

"I... I suppose you might need a guard, or a servant perhaps, if you don't require my services as a knight. To prepare your meals and fetch your tea, launder your clothing."

"Sounds like an idea," she mutters, "although I'd be needing to take a proper look at you while you work. Or maybe I should say, an  _improper_ look."

Before he might ask what she's talking about, what she  _means_ , the dark creature who to some extent may or may not be still Lady Belle traces her thumb along the lower half of his face, slightly parting his lips.

"You are supposed to  _flinch_ when the monster touches you, Sir Knight," she says with a sudden hoarseness.

"I see no monster here," he whispers back, none of the beasts he has encountered throughout the years only vaguely reminding him of  _this_ , the none too implicit threat of her power and darkness underscored by the very conversation they're having... by the unfamiliar heat blossoming in his veins and the highly unexpected warmth and softness of her fingertips.

"Then you aren't looking well enough, sir."

A whisper of purple smoke of sorts is quickly followed by a considerably more natural whisper of chilly air, alerting him to the fact that his jerkin his gone... and so is his undershirt.

"What..." he brings out, not understanding... especially not until he sees the for some reason approving expression on her face.

"What a pretty knight you are," she croons when she looks –  _stares –_ at his chest, her hand still resting on his face, practically cupping his cheek.

Sir Rumplestiltskin is a novice to attraction and seduction and anything related to it, and with a jolt he wonders whether that's what going on here, whether attraction is the reason that she behaves towards him like this, no matter how unlikely; whether it's arousal that has his skin flushing.

"Would you have done it, sir?" she asks lowly, stroking his face while her gaze roams over his bare torso. "Would you have given me a year of your life in exchange for the life of a noblewoman you don't even know? Would you have given  _yourself_ to me? To be corrupted by the darkness, although not in the way it has corrupted me?"

"Yes, I would have," he rasps, in a strange, twisted way disappointed that in reality he won't have the opportunity to make this deal... to be  _hers_. "I would have served you, happily."

"You would have been a good boy, wouldn't you?"

"I would have, yes," he finds himself saying, the words surprising him as much as the way he nods in agreement to her words with pathetic eagerness.

The knight has no idea what's coming over him, only that these desires which present themselves to him for the first time are very much coming from within him, not influenced by any sort of magic. In fact, if her startled eyes are anything to go by, the Dark One is as surprised by what is happening between them as he is himself.

Throughout all these years, the vow of chastity he had to take when he was knighted has never been difficult at all for him to keep. That's quite a contrast to so many of his peers, if the drunk bragging at late night campfires is anything to go by. But here he is, at the mercy of the shockingly seductive Dark One, having thoughts and wishes he didn't expect himself to ever have for someone he doesn't even know, let alone...

Then there's no more room for any sort of conscious consideration or reflection, for she chooses that moment to splay her entire still free hand on his belly. Sir Rumplestiltskin sucks in a harsh breath when she touches him so firmly, so  _intimately,_  the contact sending fire spreading all throughout him.

"This is the point where you  _squirm,_ " she says lowly, her tone challenging.

And squirming he does, if for a whole other reason than expected beforehand by either of them. He knows fear and discomfort only too well, but the way heat spreads throughout him and something inside of him starts to  _throb_  now that she touches him like this still has nothing to do with dread either... or at least, not the sort he has known in his life until now.

In fact, he still shouldn't be feeling like this at all. It isn't  _proper_ and it's probably very dangerous as well, knowing who she is -  _what_ she is. But he's  _burning_ and she's  _offering_ and it's not as if the other knights are ever punished one way or another for their lustful indiscretions.

"Please, my lady, please..."

"Please what? Please don't kill you? Please let you go? Be specific,  _sir_. Specificity is important."

"Please touch me," he whispers in a voice he doesn't recognize as his own.

"You really want me to, don't you?" she asks, that so very human quality taking over her voice once more as she sounds yet more bewildered than he is himself.

"I do," he whimpers, almost wishing that this wasn't the first time for him to be touched in such a manner, so he might have any reference of sorts for this... so he might know what to  _do_ and, perhaps yet more importantly, what  _not_ to do _._ "I know that it's wrong, but I want to be touched by you."

As it is, he is as inexperienced as he has always been, groaning uncontrollably when she moves her hand lower, closer towards a part of him of which he  _knows_ that it needs her touch the most.

His hips are bucking for as far as the ropes still securing him allow him, his head thrown back against the by now mercifully cool tiles behind him.

"You really are a strange man, Sir Rumplestiltskin."

_I'm discovering that right along with you_ , his consciousness uselessly supplies, but the majority of his being is focused on nothing but her and their forbidden nearness.

"Just to be certain on this," she continues, stroking his belly in a way that has him gasping both because of the touch itself and the shocking gentleness of it, "you'd like  _me_ to touch you?"

"I do. Yes, by the gods, I do."

"So how about we make a deal, one that will leave both of us... satisfied?"

The last word causes him to tense for a reason that has nothing to do with arousal any longer.

"Ah, so you're not so eager to touch the Dark One in return, are you?" she remarks with something that couldn't possibly be disappointment.

"That's... that's not it, my lady. It's just that I... I don't know how to do this. To... how to leave  _you_ satisfied."

"Are you telling me that you've never lain with a woman before – or a man... that you're as innocent as an unwed man is supposed to be, had he been a woman?"

"I am, my lady," he brings out, following her gaze to his hands, void of any rings, having no idea how this truth might impact this bizarre relationship with the woman he should fear and detest rather than desire.

"So you've never done anything like this before?" she purrs hotly into his ear. "Tell me the truth, knight, and nothing but the truth."

"I've never done anything like this before," he hastily replies, tears of both frustration and sheer  _need_ welling in his eyes. "I've never known a woman's touch... or a man's."

She goes still in response to that revelation, her gaze becoming pensive.

"So you're telling me that you didn't steal kisses from either ladies or scullery maids? That you didn't steal  _anything_ nor take anything which was freely offered?"

"I didn't, my lady," he says, trembling. He has been mocked for this often enough, but it never truly mattered until now, when the chance of exploring his arousal with this extraordinary woman might depend on his ability to repay her in kind for his pleasure. "I never did."

"You didn't want any of them? You weren't interested?"

"I don't often meet women to begin with, but... no, I wasn't interested, and neither were they. And besides..."

"Besides what?" she asks as soon as he falters and lowers his gaze, thinking of what his life might have been like if he wouldn't have had to spend his life as a soldier and a knight, both to protect the lands and to earn his own keep.

"I couldn't have, could I?" he mutters, studying her dark, rather impractical looking boots. "Even if I would have liked to. If  _they_ would have liked to."

"Why not? What was there to prevent you from taking exactly what you wanted?"

"I swore an oath," he says, straightening himself and looking her directly in the eyes. "I am a  _knight_. Unless I were to be married to a woman, any intimacy between us... it wouldn't have been chivalrous. It would be against anything I stand for."

"But you never married, either."

"I didn't, no. There was no woman who... there  _is_ no woman who I'd wished to be married to. No woman I _love._ And if I did... I can't settle down, my lady. The King and his men sends me wherever they are in need of my services, all over the realm. I wouldn't want to abandon my wife like that. I can't condemn either of us to that fate."

"So you refrained from intimacy altogether."

"I did, my lady."

"How refreshing," she utters, her words lost on him when her hand on his stomach starts moving again. "And yet, you appear to want  _me."_

"I do, my lady," he replies rather miserably, her last statement definitely catching his attention even when her fingertips venture slightly under the edge of his breeches.

"You don't sound particularly happy about it," she remarks, her words as teasing – or cruel, depending on one's point of view – as her fingers when they move closer towards the part of him that turns out to be almost  _bursting_ for her touch.

"I'm... this is not something I ever expected," he grinds out, feeling positively light-headed.

"It isn't, is it?" she replies, sounding sympathetic, more human... but again only for a moment.

All he can do is whimper in response when her fingertips brush meaningfully along his lower abdomen.

"But more than that, I  _shouldn't. We_ shouldn't," he brings out, to his shame only attempting to stay true to his vow now that she led him to bring it up in the first place. "I do not... I  _can not_ dishonor you, my lady."

"You wouldn't dishonor me, sir," she says, for some reason  _chuckling_ a little. "Believe me, I appreciate your beliefs. I appreciate them a lot. After all the so-called knights I knew, my presumably 'noble' fiancé... I admire you, sir. And now that I've become the way I am... there's nothing left to dishonor, especially not by a man like you. Besides, you couldn't hurt me even if you wanted to. The darkness doesn't like its physical presence to be damaged, you know."

Her expression softens and she reaches for his still bound arm, meeting his hand with hers to squeeze it lightly.

"No one will ever know about this, Sir Rumplestiltskin," she continues quietly. "No one but you and me. I don't require your involvement in my life in any way afterwards, nor do I expect it. I'd  _like_ to be touched by you and you'd like to be touched by me as well. Isn't that all what matters?"

"I... I suppose it is, my lady," he nods, shivering at the prospect, at the  _permission_ he's been given... especially when she shifts again, her hand leaving its relatively safe previous territory, sending all the heat and  _wanting_ straight back into him.

"So you would like me to touch you?" she asks, smirking and teasing once more, the way she pointedly looks at his crotch leaving no doubt whatsoever about the place she's referring to. "Right there?"

" _Yes,_ " he cries out, all dignity and decorum long forgotten, just like the deal she referred to only a few moments ago. "Please."

"What did you say?" she asks with a sultriness that leaves him panting yet more. "I didn't hear that final word you said."

"Please," he repeats, not too far gone yet to know that she's toying with him. And yet, he can't help but do react exactly as she wants him to. " _Please_. Touch me."

"Where do you want me to touch you?" she asks in a sing-song voice of sorts.

"Anywhere," he brings out, barely able to consider his reply when her cunning fingertips brush through the curling hair  _almost_ right where his body is begging for her most insistingly.

"Anywhere?" she echoes, her tone more than that single word as such informing him that he has made a mistake, that he's going to pay the price for letting his guard down to this extent in the very presence of the most powerful creature in all the realms.

And yet, it's a punishment of a kind he couldn't have imagined until very recently when all she does is withdraw her questing hand in response. It retreats to its previous place on his belly to stroke his skin with her unnaturally colored fingernails, both of them watching the clenching and unclenching muscles in his abdomen that they cause.

"This is not what you meant, is it?" she says, only half teasing.

"It isn't, my lady, but I'll cherish whatever kind touch you deem to bestow on me."

"Modest and well-mannered, too," she breathes into his ear, "I think that requires a reward."

Purposefully and slowly, very slowly, she lowers her hand again, this time keeping it on the outside of his clothing. In a way, it makes him only more eager for her touch now that he can  _see_ her fingertips moving down, rubbing along the leather that covers him.

"You know, I read something just this afternoon. In fact, I was still reading it when I felt your uninvited appearance. The book was...  _fascinating_ ," she says conversationally, right before she reaches where he is wordlessly begging for her attention. "The acts described there... I must say that I can't stop thinking about them. It really is amazing, the kind of... material I've found in the most neglected corners of the library of the Dark Caste. I supposed that I'd never get to actually experience it, but now that you have offered yourself to me..."

The ropes keeping him secure against the wall behind him are as tight and unforgiving as they have been the whole time. But he  _can_ tilt his head towards her and he does, intuitively, allowing him to feel her untamed curls against his skin, that contact alone having him sighing with longing.

She withdraws her hand again without warning, this time to stroke up and down the trail of hair leading from his belly button to beneath his leather breeches, right where she already touched him before. She didn't caress him like  _this_ though and Rumplestiltskin hisses out loud in undeniable pleasure.

"How about we agree that I let you go after you have pleasured me to the best of your abilities and I satisfy you regardless?" she asks, the words practically caressing his flushed throat as well.

Any thought of not agreeing to the utterly inane proposal is gone when she brushes her fingertips lightly against his length. Although the contact between them is minimal and there's fabric separating them, his breath hitches in his throat and he lets out a desperate groan at the friction, sensations he never knew before shooting throughout him like lightning bolts.

"Do we have a deal?"

There's no telling whether this has been her plan all along, whether she for some reason  _wants_ him to agree to this. At this point, she could persuade him to do just about anything, as long as she would either set him free straight away or – considerably better yet - release the shamefully enjoyable pressure which keeps building up inside of him even now.

He could be under the influence of a potion or a spell... in fact, he probably  _is,_ for there is no way that he'd react to her on his own accord, that she can make him desire her to the point of madness without magical interference… or is there?

"Yes,  _yes_ ," he groans, nodding as much as his current position allows him. "I agree to the deal."

"Good... very good."

"Now please...  _touch me_. Right where... right where you just did."

"Such impatience," she whispers, removing her hand from his body altogether.

" _Please_..."

All he can do is plead,  _beg_ , with his voice as much with his eyes and the rest of his body. He should have  _known_ that it was a trick of sorts, that he should probably be grateful if he can get out of this situation with only his remaining dignity utterly shattered – and that he'll in all likelihood lose a whole lot more than that.

"All in good time, my sweet," she purrs, taking a step away from him. "After all, you just agreed to get started with  _me_ , didn't you?"

The Dark One shrugs her thick coat off her shoulders, revealing an equally black dress which is considerably less functional. All he can do is gasp when his eyes roam without his permission over her lithe form, especially the curves which the tight material only barely conceals.

"You're going to have to  _earn_  it; you're a gallant knight after all, aren't you?"

Rumplestiltskin swallows with difficulty when she traces her hand along her front, her nails almost perfectly matching the color of the material, her fingers trailing between her breasts. He can see the outline of the tip of one of them right through the sinfully soft and inviting looking fabric.

"I... I try to be, my lady," he utters, barely able to think at all when his mouth waters at the tantalizing display.

He has never seen anything like this, has never met anyone remotely like her. A part of him solemnly reminds himself even now that he can't give in to anything she says or does, that she's  _dangerous_ , but she's utterly seductive and – gods help him – he  _trusts_ her; for now at least.

"Let's get somewhere more comfortable," she says, purple smoke appearing once more when she snaps her fingers.

The knight tenses intuitively, closing his eyes, but there's no pain or any other sensation for that matter other than the world seeming to  _twirl_ around him for a brief moment. Eventually, he opens his eyes again, his heart beating wildly.

There's no longer any sign of the smoke and he finds himself in a large bedroom of sorts, a fire burning brightly in a nearby hearth. The curtains and carpets are of dark blues and greens, the floorboards an ancient oak.

The Dark Lady is standing in front of him, never taking her eyes off him, not even to blink, seemingly awaiting his reaction. Looking around for as much as he can, the knight makes a subconscious keening noise in the back of his throat when he finds out that he's still half naked and appears to be tied to a bed, both his arms and legs spread and bound with rather comfortable but still very much restricting ropes.

His arousal flaring once more and his breath coming in rapid, shallow bursts, Sir Rumplestiltskin stares with longing at the Dark One, despite himself eagerly awaiting whatever she intends to do with him.


End file.
